Reflections
by UmbralTiger
Summary: His squad is dead. He's holed up in a fortress with no plans of escape. Archangel doesn't have long.


**AN: A one-shot analysis of the few minutes before meeting Archangel, and is applicable to either Male- or FemShep. Enjoy!**

* * *

Twisting a heat sink over, and over again in his hand. Trying to pry his mind away from that soul-crushing moment when he walked into the blood-spattered halls where the trap had been sprung. Had to stay sharp, stay focused, to survive. Another enemy darted into view, thinking he was being clever in his makeshift-camouflaged armor. One shot was enough to prove him wrong.

_**"Hey, Vakarian. I got some intel you might be able to use. The client wants to meet you in the markets. Just you."**_

Every target that moved beneath the gaze of his scope was Sidonis. Over, and over again. Once in a while they would stop to regroup, to plot some new half-assed strategy. He dug through his supply bag. Two ration bars left, half a bottle of water. Had to make them last. He removed his hand from the bag.

_**"You served under _the _Commander Shepard? Damn, what that must have been like. You picked up a few tricks then, right?"_

_Shook his head, forced a laugh. "I'm no Shepard. But we thought a lot alike."**_

Two years honing his skills, no rules or politics to hold him back anymore. There was room for optimism, at first, when he gathered a decent team in a relatively short period of time. He'd begun to relish the victories, to infect his squad with an enthusiasm for taking the fight to the enemy. In time, he could call each of them a friend.

_**"Take it easy, boss. We don't need you drunk in an ambush."_

_"Yeah, what's with the double shots? Some turian tough-guy thing?"_

_Staring at the glass. The empty stool next to him. "....Something like that."**_

Nothing. Not a soul after ten minutes. Surely they weren't getting tired. He, on the other hand, if there wasn't a shot to line up his head was bobbing, his lids sinking. He'd lost track of the hours since he'd last slept. That was the problem with one versus many; they could take shifts trying to kill you, and weren't about to let you take twenty for a nap.

He looted the bag again. The last adrenaline shot. A couple of dozen more heat sinks. Take an absent potshot at the idiot poking his head out of cover. Re-examine your options and realize that all that's left to you are a half-dozen ways to die.

The adrenaline woke him up, not as much as the last one, but enough. His head still swam, but he had to fight through it. They'd get that damned gunship back in the air before long, too, and he wasn't in near the condition he'd been when he first shot it down. It sank in deeper, the cold feeling in his chest. The realization that they weren't going to stop coming.

_**Their lifeless, half-lidded eyes stared at him. He moved from corpse to corpse, checking. One human still breathed, but by the gurgling noise he made he was moments from drowning in his own blood. A batarian, trying with pitiful desperation to crawl towards him, was riddled with holes. Some larger than a fist. His last words were lost to whimpers of pain, but a quick assessment made it clear who was not among the dead. Sidonis.**_

"He'll get his." Now he was talking to himself. _Good sign_. "I'm only sorry it won't be me bringing it on him."

The doors opened again, but there was no immediate movement. He took a moment to name off each of his old squadmates in his head. Then a few others he'd known that had passed on over the years. Then, naturally, Shepard. The one he'd thought would outlast all of them. The one who had been the standard he'd looked to when in doubt.

"Right behind you, Shepard." Filled with less affirmation of loyalty and more bitter resignation.

He was losing his tenuous connection to his survival instinct. Hell, he was losing the connection to his emotions in general. It was easier to lose himself in his memories as the inevitable drew closer. He leaned out, intending to pick off a pair of mercs in rapid succession. He was interrupted when their bodies started to shudder violently from gunfire that certainly hadn't originated from him.

".....What?"

HIs hazy mind calculated the trajectories, his eyes followed to the most likely origin. He saw them, picking their way carefully through the room, three who moved along eliminating in succession the mercs they'd come in with. Their organized, efficient formation struck him with a strange sense of familiarity. He peered through his scope. The first two were unknown to him, meaningless faces. But the third...

"By the spirits," he uttered unconsciously. He was watching a ghost. A deadly, forceful ghost who was had come back from the void to collect him. It had finally come to...wait. No. How far gone was he? That gunfire had been real enough. His hand was loading a concussive round before he was entirely certain what he was doing. As the specter from his past was busy dropping targets, he fired. The not-so-dead Shepard reacted with a curse and a scowl up in his direction. He instinctively retreated to cover should his former commander decide to retaliate in kind.

It was like warmth had retaken his veins. It was impossible, but....lean out. Take down the interloper creeping up behind his old friend. It would have been too much to ask for him to summon excitement, or even relief. Yet something in him recognized that, if Shepard had survived, and come out here, for him, there was still a chance. Maybe he had failed to fill the role adequately, but if the commander wasn't going to be stopped by some inconvenient state of death, then he himself sure as hell wasn't.

Looking out. A straggler, behind the pillar. The door behind him opened, to Shepard and two others who didn't want to turn him into an abstract wall painting. Good enough. But business first.

"Archangel?" It was strange to hear the commander address him that way. With the nickname that had been assigned to him and that represented the last couple of years of his life. They'd have to discuss that. Among other things.

He held up a finger.

_Two years. It can wait five more seconds._


End file.
